Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO of trillion-dollar e-commerce monopoly Amazon, shockingly announced he is stepping down from his role as the Chief Executive Officer of the company later this year.
Amazon issued a press release on Tuesday afternoon which explained the change and provided a substantial financial report for the fourth quarter of 2020.
Bezos will be relinquishing the title of CEO to Andy Jassy while he transitions to role of "Executive Chair" in July 2021.
"Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos will transition to role of Executive Chair in Q3, Andy Jassy to become Chief Executive Officer of Amazon at that time", the release states.
To quell fears that the shakeup may be a signal that the e-commerce giant could be facing tough times ahead, Bezos described his company as an extremely successful company due to its continued efforts at innovation and "invention".
"Amazon is what it is because of invention. We do crazy things together and then make them normal," such as Alexa, Kindle, marketplace, cloud computing and more.
Bezos continued to tout the financial success of the company's many inventions which has resulted in a lucrative outlook in the, "long-run cumulative results of invention".
Right now I see Amazon at its most inventive ever, making it an optimal time for this transition," he concluded.
The press release continued to provide an extremely optimistic financial forecast for months to come based on substantial growth last year.
You can read the entire press release HERE.
Amazon's press release did not indicate any specific reason as to why Bezos will be stepping down. It only assured the public and investors that they continue to be an extremely profitable company that is in no immediate financial trouble.
However, based on Bezos' significant role in censorship over the past few years, and especially in recent months, we could speculate his attachment to cancel culture may have played a role in the transition.
Amazon's website hosting service was responsible for the unprecedented, complete de-platforming of pro-free speech app Parler just last month.
The company has also censored publishers from selling books that provide a different perspective on the coronavirus pandemic, specifically, Alex Berenson's booklet.
They have also played a role in censoring other books affiliated with a conservative point of view.
While there is not yet direct evidence tying Amazon's recent announcement to their censorship efforts, there could be more developments on the exact reason in days to come.
Stay tuned.
Grace Saldana
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